Is Ukip Happy Sitting With These 4 Far-Right European Friends?

11/03/2014 13:21
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Updated
11 March 2014

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The Huffington Post UK

Nigel Farage and Ukip are in trouble, again. This time it's for fraternising with other MEPs in the Europe for Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group in the European Parliament. The group, of which Farage is co-president, as The Guardian has pointed out, includes some rather extreme characters, with some pretty unpleasant views about minorities, in general, and Muslims, in particular.

1Slavi Binev, Bulgaria

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Bulgarian Slavi Binev (far left) says on his website: "If Osama bin Laden symbolises the cruellest aspect of the Islam for the Americans, then the Muslim woman with her numerous children are his European equivalent."

2Magdi Cristiano Allam, Italy

Magdi Cristiano Allam, from the I Love Italy party, has said Islam is a religion "that preaches hatred, violence and death, but that is something we're not allowed to say".

3 Frank Vanhecke, Belgium

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Frank Vanhecke's former party, Vlaams Blok, was disbanded after it was found to have violated anti-racism legislation. Vanhecke is now an independent MEP. He once attended a rally with BNP leader Nick Griffin.

4Morten Messerschmidt, Denmark

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According to The Guardian the youth organisation of Danish MEP Morten Messerschmidt [in the centre, above] was handed conviction for incitement to racial hatred in 2002 after it argued crime such as rape was a product of a multi-ethnic society.

In response to these revelations, Ukip has argued that the EFD group is a "loose marriage of convenience formed in order to get more speaking time in the European parliament" and that it "condemns racism and xenophobia".